4 | “Place”
Va-Yera 22:4
“On the third day Avraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar” (Fox)
In this painting, we face the mountain of Avraham’s impossible task: the sacrifice of his son. “Afar” tells us about Avraham’s capacity to see into the future, as well as the physical and emotional distance he must travel to fulfill God’s command.
We encounter a deep paradox in the Akedah. Isaac escapes death by his father’s hand, but the scar of that experience casts a shadow over the family and the future. We are living through and under a painful shadow right now. Holding the paradox, not necessarily resolving it, may birth the emergence of unimagined creativity.
Etja Ruth is an artist whose work bridges art and healing, exploring the places where image, movement, and voice reveal the unseen. Learn more about her Bereshit/Genesis paintings here.
